


Inevitable

by helena_s_renn



Category: Def Leppard, Music RPF, Sonata Arctica
Genre: Angst, Love/Hate Relationship, M/M, Mirror Sex, possible dub-con if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 11:05:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helena_s_renn/pseuds/helena_s_renn
Summary: Another year, another confrontation in the aftermath of Sav's break-up with the person he'd fallen for. Sav and Joe face off, they fight, they make up. It's probably not exactly what - or how - either of them had in mind."Give yourself to me, Sav. I've never asked that of your stubborn arse before out loud, but that's the heart of it. Say it."





	Inevitable

**Author's Note:**

> *Coincides with the recording of The Sparkle Lounge.  
> *I'm warning you once, the two main characters aren't very nice to each other throughout most of this.  
> *Jani is who Sav had a year-plus relationship with, for context. I tagged him and SA in the header even though he's only referred to. I'm not sure if this fits the [other] arc in which he appears, which is a WIP, so it remains unlinked.
> 
> Beta/review by ChristianHowe. Any remaining errors are mine.

-2008

Another tour lay behind them, and they converged at Joe's. In their laptops, in handwritten chicken-scratch or in their heads, they portaged in scraps of verses, bridges, choruses, intros and outros. Or in Sav's case, an entire operatic song, neatly written and tabbed. He didn't want it touched. But he knew he'd bring it to the table. That's just how things rolled. 

Their private stage: Joe's Garage -- their frontman had spent a huge chunk of his income on the studio and the house it was installed in, eager for them to work there, in a Leppard enclave. Pieces of unused gear and parts of equipment lay strewn everywhere. Sav could barely tolerate the organised chaos atmosphere of it, where Viv and Phil seemed to thrive. The two of them always had their heads together, wearing their guitars around, riffing back and forth in words and notes. Sav envied it. He'd never had that degree of understanding with anyone, musically speaking. That was his own fault, he knew it only too well. 

When the reporters, videographers, chroniclers came to record the deluxe edition video documentary, he took the others aside. "Listen, I'll stay in the room, I'm not hiding away, but I'm not up to this right now. Interviews. Exposés. All that bullshit. You lot handle it." 

"We're already missing Rick. It's just not gonna be the same without... Sav being Sav," Phil tilted his head like a curious chickadee. "I don't like to admit it, but it'll only sell half as much if you don't speak." 

Sav replied, "And half of half if I do... speak. Sorry. I can't right now." 

"What are you, depressed?" Joe used his words like a crowbar. "Get some Prozac." 

"Maybe." That and a shrug was Sav's best estimate. 

"We all have our issues," said Joe in a warning sort of voice. Around their impromptu circle, the sounds of foot-shuffling. "Deal with it. Be a professional." 

"I am. I know my limits," Sav snapped. "Take it or leave it. I can stay off-camera if you prefer." 

There was a long, uncomfortable pause. "So, er... Do you have new material?" Viv ventured. He was obviously reaching. 

Sav sent him a pitying look. Who had nominated the poor schmuck to wrangle him? Joe's 'mildly interested' look was entirely too calculating. 

"Yes... yes, I brought some ideas." 

 

For the next month, recording continued. People came and went, left and returned; Sav stayed on. He told himself he didn't want to relive the memories associated with his house in Sheffield. It didn't stop how he was reliving them every night inside his own head. He should sell the place, but was too unmotivated to make even one phone call to start the process. While he wouldn't say he lost time, sometimes it passed in a blur. They worked on songs for the next new album, but he couldn't always remember from one day to the next what they'd accomplished, often surprised at the playback that emanated from the speakers. 

They talked - endlessly - about things that didn't matter. Ate the good food Mal prepared from scratch. Drank the expensive whiskey Joe never ran short of. He tried running, when being in the house got too stifling. Rarely made it more than a mile or two before he wandered, huffing and wheezing, off the path into the nearby park to stare at trees. An abandoned nest littered with speckled egg shards. Two bunnies chasing each other in circles and doing what bunnies do best. Sav, on the other side of the scale, hadn't even tossed off in weeks; he couldn't remember the last time. By now, he should be healing, shouldn't he? The raw wound had scabbed over in his psych, leaving him tentative, scared of ripping it open again. He didn't want to be alone; he didn't want company. Inside the room designated as his, he brooded most nights with headphone buds stuck in his ears, turned up loud so he didn't have to hear the knocks on his door. 

It caught him off guard, when it finally happened. The wall around him cracked and crumbled. The three California-dwellers were back and they were all in the throes of his song. "Love". What a joke. But what else was he supposed to call it? Every measure still ripped Sav to shreds, almost as much as when he'd written and arranged it months before. When he opened his mouth to sing his parts, nothing would come, and he'd fled the studio not once but five times now. 

"This is getting ridiculous," Joe said from the open entrance to Sav's room, which, defeating the purpose of having a door and a lock, he hadn't even bothered to close. 

On the far side of the room, Sav looked out the window into the lush green yard, holding himself still and tense. Any sudden move and he'd utterly lose it. He refocused his eyes on the faint reflection in the glass, of Joe leaning a shoulder against the frame with his arms folded across his chest and his feet crossed at the ankles. "I'm aware. Just have Viv sing my parts." 

A noise of dissent rumbled at him. "No. For one thing, he won't do it. I asked him after the second time you... Wanna know what he said? 'This is a Rick Savage creation. I'm not about to put my voice where his goes.' Summat like that. So get your arse back in that studio and stop fucking around. What are you? I'd say 'woman' but most of them are tougher and less self-pitying than you these days." 

"What do you know about it, you prick?" Joe had plenty to do with it; neither of them had brought it up directly up to this point but it hung there between them. 

"Plenty. So your little boytoy ripped your heart out. Did he rip your balls off, too? Get a fucking grip. I know loss every fucking day. Year in, year out. Right in front of my eyes. And guess what?!" Joe raised his voice. "I keep going. Because there is nothing and no one else!" The two of them remained motionless for endless seconds, staring via watery reflection, then Joe slammed the door and was gone. 

Sav was... angry. Incensed. He wanted to hit something, maybe shatter the freestanding mirror in the corner of the room. How dare that know-it-all sonuvabitch go there? If he knew what was good for him, he'd leave before he found himself on his back with his legs in the air. Joe's mood was no mystery. 

At least that was something familiar. Predictable. It wasn't treading on glass shards or walking through fire. Then once again, his motivation for anything but inertia dwindled to nil. His moment of emotion burned out, leaving him limp and lukewarm. Sav half expected one of the others to appear next, but no, they let him be while they, he had to assume, continued working. 

The soundproofed studio meant he was alone in the otherwise too-quiet house. The most he heard, more like felt, was the kick drum from time to time. But then he felt the sonorous vibrating of a bass guitar, and someone really thumping on it. If Joe had dared touch his instrument, he was going to fucking gut him. Maybe it was Rick: that Mick Rock bloke seemed to think a one-armed guitarist was feasible. That guy. The other four had found him uproariously hilarious while Sav had laughed uncomfortably along with the over-dramatised comments that he looked like 'a fucking homosexual'. Excuse his fucking eyeliner. Showed what that guy knew! Mood slightly elevated, he returned. 

Silence greeted him when he walked in. Whoever had been playing the throwaway Fender had put it back on its stand. Sav eyed them suspiciously, but he had no one to accuse and no one 'fessed up. 

"You wanna try it again?" Viv asked, ending the silence. "I can sing along in your earphones, if that would help." 

"Want to, no. But I will... try it. That's okay, Viv, you know how it is: I need to hear myself." They all nodded. 

Sav's voice broke halfway through the first chorus. The next take, at the end of the first line. He was ready to walk out again. 

Joe appeared in the sound booth just as Sav tossed his headphones aside. "This has gone on long enough. You're not getting out of here till you finish it, I don't care if we have to go one line at a time." In a sort of physical protest, Sav clenched his teeth so hard his jaw practically locked. "Hit me if you must. Yell at me. Get it all out. Go on, then. One-time offer."

"Condescending bastard! I wouldn't give you the satisfaction," hissed Sav. 

"What? Of hitting me? Oh yes, so very satisfying." Joe was trying not to leer, and not concealing it well. It'd be just like him to get off on the idea of Sav attempting to slap him around. 

"Every little move, every word, comes as part of the master plan, doesn't it. Yeah, come in then, and close the fucking door." Sav looked through the window, but the room with the mixing board was mostly dark. "Whoever's behind the board, turn the sound off. You don't want to hear this." The LED indicator light went out. 

"Last chance. You're not gonna want to hear this shite either, I guarantee it," he said to Joe, for once clear in voice and intent. He wanted Sav to spill his guts? Guts would be spilled. All this time, Sav had kept everything in, secret in his heart. Now, forget heartbreak, it was heartburn, angina, arterial stenosis of his psyche. It would hurt them both. "So listen well." He waited till the door was firmly shut. Joe wasn't going anywhere. No, he was honed in so hard. 

"Jani," Joe actually flinched when Sav said the name, "was mine. I chose him, I pursued him. I followed him to fucking Finland, more than once, because once we were together, we couldn't stand to be away from each other. And you know what else? Hard to believe, I know, we're so used to everyone swinging both ways or at least having tried it but it's not like that in his scene. You understand what I'm saying, right?" Joe's 'dog-chewing-on-a-wasp' face showed his comprehension. Still, Sav chose to twist the knife. "He'd never even been with a bloke before. And I've never been with... anyone like that, man or woman. Strange as it may sound, it was almost like... being with some untapped version of myself. So needy, so... uninhibited, once I'd opened him up to it." This, he exaggerated the double meaning, though at the time, their love had seemed pure and untainted despite the extreme sexuality of it. 

In telling Joe even the high-level overview version, using it as a weapon, Sav felt Jani's betrayal as well as his own, and knew he'd been repaid in advance by what he'd walked in on in that bathroom. "I fell in love with him. It was mutual. Don't even imagine that I didn't let him put me on my hands and knees. It was one of those Gift of the Magi things, where I was gagging for it and he was so scared I'd hate him for even asking, we almost missed the chance. We got tested and somehow, despite how we live, both results came back clean. His mark is on me forever, Joe. On my skin, up my arse, I taste him in my mouth; I can still feel his body at odd moments, hear his voice, his laugh, the rest..." Sav's voice had gone raspier and raspier and he had to cough. "Those things might fade but it'll never be gone. Not in this lifetime." The ghosts of his past rattled their bones in his head. 

He waited, sure Joe would punch his dirty mouth. He got the soulless death glare but no physical out-lashing. "Alright, fair enough. I suppose... now you know how it feels. Maybe it had to happen, for things to come full circle." Joe's words came out flat, monotone. They punched through Sav's pathetic shell. He'd expected jealous rage; what he got was some oblique form of empathy. It didn't make sense. For years, he'd been aware of... something, but hadn't the slightest idea why Joe, who projected confidence and leadership at every turn, had such a weak spot.

Still, 'had to happen'? Sav didn't believe in fate. "What the fuck does that mean?" he demanded. 

"Fuck you, Sav. Rick. You _know_." Joe harkened to earlier times, the boy beneath the paper doll, the real person beneath the showpiece. 

"Jesus, I... I'm sorry." Why was he apologising? Because he'd forever wanted to be left alone to lick his wounds and Joe's periodic reunions were only the tip of his iceberg-sized wealth of love and caring? Or was it only selfish ownership issues? Whichever, Sav had found it invasive, encroaching on his autonomy. He could only take being the recipient in small doses. All those times, he'd always walked away. 

"Don't be sorry, you arsehole. It means nothing if I don't have to fight for it." 

"That's not true. What's wrong with easy, simple?"

"Everything." 

Sav struggled again with what to say. He actually agreed with Joe on that point. "I have nothing for you." Like a blade's edge, it cut him too as he perceived how much his constant holding out had driven his bandmate to distraction. It wasn't Joe's fault how badly Sav had mishandled... everything. He amended, "Nothing left to give." 

"I have enough for both of us. For now; forever. And if that's not enough, then do what you need to. Just... come back to me." It was the only time Joe came close to choking over his words. His plea echoed across years and distance. 

When Sav's mouth moved, nothing came out. Kind like all these weeks trying to record this fucking song. He tried to turn his back, but Joe was on him and wouldn't let go. It felt all wrong. But familiar, too, and in that, comfortable. How could it be both? 

"Don't get all weepy on me, dammit... just sing. I'm here." 

It was hardly Jim Morrison's infamous blow jobs, performed to milk any viable shade of drug-dead emotion. For Sav, it was the opposite. Something, someone absorbed his excess, braced him up long enough to be clear in voice, at least. It was embarrassing, that he was so incapable in the face of his own shredded heart. Not to mention the physical ramifications. But it was the only thing that worked. Joe held him. Sav sang his lines into the hanging mic over Joe's shoulder while he clung like a barnacle in rough seas. 

...

"Don't." The touch was gentle, too tender. Joe's hands were too big for the disproportionate delicacy. 

"Why not?" Hot breath on the back of his neck, shivers down his spine. Arms around him from behind, supporting him, holding him up. 

That thing, the thing that was always written all over Joe's face, Sav couldn't see it now, for the shadows. "I shouldn't." But a whisper, his voice. Betrayal, pushed aside. Tarnished and battered love beat in his chest. Too easy, too much; if he opened the door, it would engulf and surround him from all sides. 

"Didn't say you can't, Sav. Didn't say you won't." He was being nuzzled now, still from the physical position of above and behind. His neck. His earlobes. He was frozen. On fire. Intrepid fingers crept across him, touching in flashback stealthiness he could not protest. His defences and clothing fell away in whispers. 

His words stuttered halting, hiccups of the foregone. "Always been something... like I've always been... yours... Since... since after..." Wicked green and limpid blue met in the mirror. He couldn't help but see. This was happening. He couldn't hide the effects of those fingers, so far barely touching. "Please, Joe, turn the light off. _Please_." 

"I'd give you almost anything, but not that. Look at me. With all your senses, feel me." Hands on his nakedness now, everywhere, holding his body up like the christ on the cross and drawing electric blood to the surface. "Just look at you." Wonder flooded sun-warmed from words to reflection. Pale skin glowed, lit from within, lit by the relentless, perfect touch forced upon him because that's how it had to be. 

He ground, powerless, powerful into and against the spell over and around, against the rough weave of denim. "Do it, then." Tried to make it disdain. It was pleading pushed down into the recesses of years, how good, how fine. 

"Nuh-uh. Not yet. Give yourself to me, Sav. I've never asked that of your stubborn arse before out loud, but that's the heart of it. Say it. Show it. Show _me_." Fingers brushed over his forearms, his biceps, the thin soft skin underneath, tickling the hair in his armpits, on toward the arches of his ribs pulling in and out like bellows. 

"Why do you even want me?" Sav grated. "I've never understood. I'm not that special. I can't feel... any of what I should, if we're..." Under his ribcage, his heart pumped the thundering rush of blood that raised the vessels under his skin, here, there, Joe's fingertips alighting on his sternum, neutral ground.

"Didn't ask you for love, did I? Know why?" In the mirror, the eyes Joe had been born knowing how to use raked his body, then returned to Sav's face. "Because you do. It fucking scares you. To feel that much. It's always hurt you. But I won't." 

"You already have." 

"Then... consider us even."

Each of his nipples was pinched and rolled into a tingling diamond hot-wired to his groin. Sav moaned and his eyes rolled back. Crawling infinitesimally down his abs, caging his hipbones, the fingers, the hands, the breath, till his throbbing was unbearable; he was moaning too loud, a dying, living, agonised chorus of acquiescence, bowing to the inevitable. Just desserts. One hand slid up to his throat. The thumbnail scraped a fine line. Downward, the other, taking his weight and measure. 

"I want you to fuck me." Crude words for the act of love, but to Sav it meant their bodies would express the things he couldn't say, even now. Half-dead twisted wraiths and fire dragons beat their wings in his head. A man could be in love with more than one person in a lifetime, at the same time, and he had, three: three more than he deserved. Never had he given up hope. He still didn't. Those off his plate for now or forever, he'd keep buried safe and hidden. One was enough. 

"Then watch." Sav watched himself being loved, opened, entered. Eyes watered, mouth hung slack, his belly trembled as he struggled. Joe bit down, shoved up, the perfect angle and the perfect spot and kept him on edge till he drooled, overflowing everything held in check. Security to groan low and dirty, cry out in keening wails, regret for life coming to this: tiny spurts sparkling clear, then ivory through a relentless hand. Coming apart and undone, he felt it before he saw it hit the glass, splatter spatter drip drip drip, liquid lava love that filled him, too. 

"Mine, Sav, you will always be mine." Everything in him still resisted. He did not want to be owned. He was a human being, no one's toy, no one's slave or pet, no one's trophy wife. 

Except... the man still inside him had been strong enough to let him go his own way, live his own life, before and going ahead while possessing nothing but the most marginal hold. In control of himself enough, had proved himself for something like 7500 days.

He gave in. Finally. Let it wash over him and drown him in light and shadow, this imagery. "If it's like that, expect the same thing from me. You're mine, but we will never, _ever_ hold every single piece. Too late for that."

"It's not." Joe reached up and turned Sav's bowed head to the side. Pulled tangled hair aside. He leaned, himself, to kiss the lips still swollen into their former curves by the rampage of need and release. "Broken and missing pieces are part of the set, too. They can be found, and mended. You'll see."

 

Fin.


End file.
